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Beneath
The Message Tree
A letter from the editor.
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Recently,
after completing some business dealings in
downtown Springfield, I was driving along
College Street and noticed a granite
monument that had been erected on or near
the location of the first schoolhouse in
the Queen City of the Ozarks. I circled
the block and pulled onto the parking lot
where this stone marker was standing, and
read the inscription that made note of the
fact, the first school had been a log
cabin erected by local citizens, and went
of to give the date and so forth. It was
then I experienced one of the epiphanies
that have become such a subject of humor
by the other contributors to this
publication, like some character in a
classic cartoon strip, a light bulb was
turned on in the seemingly endless void of
space between my ears and it occurred to
me that this would make an excellent story
for The Message Tree.
Surely
local archives would have at least a
drawing, or some sort of artist's
conception of the original school, and it
also dawned on me how interesting it would
be photograph the monument and perhaps
include a map of where it is located.
Memories flooded into my mind of the many
instances in which I had read of a
historical location or geological feature,
the physical location of which, was simply
noted by the author as being near
"Somewhereville" and then remembering my
thoughts of "now just where in the world
is that, and how does one get from here to
there?"
Suddenly
the thought rushed into my pea brain
questioning why stop here, why not over a
period of time give all the historical
markers in the Ozarks the same treatment.
After all just that past evening I had
been reading some of the postings in the
county specific genealogical e-mail groups
on the internet, asking where such
landmarks as the Wire Road had been
located. So hey, why not use the Message
Tree to provide such a service to its
readers, provide them with brief written
histories, photos of the locations, and
maps of where these landmarks were?
So
then I thought of the words of Peter
Engler, the wood carver extraordinaire who
in the interview we did with him earlier
this year, spoke of a "grounding effect"
and how those words applied to the need of
a society or culture, in order to arrive
at a knowledge of where the group is going
as a whole, they must first understand
where they are from, to realize their
"roots," where it all started, the point
of origin.
Point
Of Origin, with that phrase I thought of
my days a couple of decades ago when in
the volunteer fire service, I sat through
a seminar where a State Fire Marshall
spoke on Arson Investigation and how the
specific spot where a fire started was
known as the point of origin or P.O.O.
Using a bit of humor to illustrate his
point he went on to say that a fire was
considered suspicious when there was more
than one point of origin, or POO POO. In
retrospect, I have arrived at the
conclusion that as of late I have been
spending entirely too much time at the
computer and not enough time out in the
real world, because there I was driving
through Springfield, having lost my
previous thoughts that were of a serious
nature and degrading those concepts to
juvenile humor.
I
must have been loosing my mind that day,
as I thought of how so many of us authors
have with great seriousness admonished our
readers to take time to study and learn of
our history and heritage, our POO.
Heretical thinking huh? Using childish
humor to illustrate a very serious
thought. But in my moments of escape from
the computer, my mind was racing like a
young colt running across a lush green
Ozarks pasture, and the lunacy continued.
So
if as we have so often said, one must
understand their POO (point of origin)
before developing an effective outlook of
their path into the future, should they
fail to first ascertain their POO, does
that necessary mean that they are in deep
POO POO? If one develops a deep
understanding of their POO, is that to say
they are connected to their POO? Would
someone new to the rewarding study of
heritage and history, be considered in
search of their POO? Which of course
brings up the question of how does one
lose their POO?
By
now you are surely convinced that you're
the Message Tree editor has lost what
little mind he ever had is certainly full
of, ----- well would the word POO
adequately describe what you are thinking
that my brain has turned into?
Seriously
folks, there are monuments that have been
erected all over the Ozarks, landmarks
denoting the places that have become
important to our contemporary culture.
Just a few blocks in Springfield from the
location of the monument that started this
discourse detailing my demented thought
process, there is a marker denoting the
location of the first "wild west
shootout."
Historians
agree that the "high noon" duel between
desperados that has become popularized by
the media for well over a hundred years,
simply didn't exist. But the historical
basis for this type of "quick draw" gun
play actually started when the story of
the events that took place on the square
in Springfield Missouri, was dramatized
and sensationalized in cheap western
novels that were so highly popular a
century ago. The marker, located just off
of the square, tells of how Wild Bill
Hickok shot Dave Tutt over an argument
arising from a pocket watch that Tutt had
won from Hickok in a poker game. Some
reports say that Tutt fired first, but the
accuracy of his aim at such a long
distance was inferior to that of Hickok's,
this act giving birth to what has been
memorialized in thousands of books and
screen plays. And to think that it all
started right here in the Ozarks,
historical trivia that places that point
of origin in our own backyard.
Other
monuments are more than a granite marker
or a metal plaque, consider the Wilson's
Creek National Battlefield. Here one can
spend hours if not days exploring the
history behind one of the most important
battles fought in the Civil War, west of
the Mississippi River. Another National
Monument, among the many others that are
nearby, is the George Washington Carver
Monument, near Diamond Missouri. This park
with its beautiful nature and
interpretative trails is a gem that we
Ozarkers should be proud of. Many of us
learned in public school of Carver's
works, sadly some of us only associated
him with the work that resulted in the
increased use of peanut products, namely
peanut butter. But it is remarkable to
think that this great man whose genius was
recognized around the world, was native to
the Ozarks, and began his life as a slave.
By visiting this monument that preserves
Carver's birthplace, we can see how
recognizing the point of origin of a
particular man or even a group of men, can
bring us insight as to what inspired these
people to greatness.
Please
excuse my feeble attempt at humor to
illustrate an important concept, the idea
that by recognizing point of origin (POO)
we can gain a wealth of understanding as
to how our society arrived at this point
in time. Be it something as seemingly as
insignificant as the first School House in
Springfield, the first western style
shootout, or as important as the Battle of
Wilson's Creek and the tremendous impact
on agriculture that George Washington
Carver's work had, we Missourians should
take great pride in the knowledge that so
many historical figures and events shared
a common point of origin, the Ozarks.
THE
MESSAGE TREE
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